OF A RANCHMAN 73 



chicken at eighty or ninety yards, shoot a 

 deer running through brush at that distance, 

 kill grouse on the wing early in the season, 

 and knock over antelopes when they are 

 so far off that I should not dream of shoot- 

 ing. He firmly believes, and so do most men 

 that speak of him, that he never misses. Yet 

 I have known him make miss after miss at 

 game, and some that were not such especially 

 difficult shots either. One secret of his suc- 

 cess is his constant practice. He is firing 

 all the time, at marks, small birds, etc., etc., 

 and will average from fifty to a hundred 

 cartridges a day; he certainly uses nearly 

 twenty thousand a year, while a man who 

 only shoots for sport, and that occasionally, 

 will, in practising at marks and every thing 

 else, hardly get through with five hundred. 

 Besides, he was cradled in the midst of wild 

 life, and has handled a rifle and used it 

 against both brute and human foes almost 

 since his infancy ; his nerves and sinews are 

 like iron, and his eye is naturally both quick 

 and true. 



